Fayette school bus workers ‘hurt and heal together’ as more test positive for COVID-19

The Lexington-Fayette health department reported two more positive COVID-19 tests among Fayette school transportation employees, bringing the total to 21, as workers recovering from the virus say the school district could have been more proactive about the outbreak.

David Hill, 66, a driver assigned to the Liberty Road school bus garage, said Friday he found out he was positive for coronavirus on Monday, April 6, after most of his symptoms, including a low grade fever, had subsided.

After schools closed, Hill was one of the drivers who delivered food to children at various dropoff points in Lexington through March 25. The district announced March 25 it was shutting down its two bus garages after a transportation worker involved in food delivery had tested positive.

“The way it was handled was more reactive,“ than proactive, said Hill, who said he has recovered and feels well. Bus garage employees were getting together in large groups at work as food was being delivered throughout the community, Hill said, “which did nothing to mitigate the potential for widespread infection.”

Kevin Hall, a spokesman for the Lexington-Fayette Health Department, said that as of Friday, two more Fayette County residents who work at the Miles Point school bus garage have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number among workers at that bus garage to 19. At least two Liberty Road bus garage employees had been reported testing positive by Sunday April 5.

Hall said a total of 29 Fayette County residents who work at Fayette County schools had tested positive as of Friday, but he did not have data on Fayette transportation workers who live outside the county.

Elsewhere in Kentucky, Jefferson County Public Schools spokesman Mark Hebert said two Jefferson school district employees had self reported they were positive and on Thursday, district officials received the first notification from their local health department of a positive case of a district employee, for a total of three.

Hall said that as of Friday morning, no other Fayette school employees had died since Miles Point bus driver Eugenia Weathers on April 4. Weathers’ daughter is among those questioning whether school district officials notified workers and their families about the positive cases in a timely fashion or took adequate precautions.

The Fayette County Schools’ spokesperson and the board chairwoman have said that the district did all it could to prevent the spread of the virus among its employees even though it publicly disclosed districtwide only four out of 27 total cases before Sunday April 5. The district initially publicly revealed only two of the five schools where staff members had tested positive.

Stareka Howell, 40, a bus monitor at Miles Point, said she has been out of the hospital about a week after testing positive for COVID-19. Howell said she sought treatment after she developed a cough, shortness of breath and back pain. A bus driver Howell worked closely with has also tested positive, she said.

Howell helped deliver food throughout the community after schools shutdowns statewide on March 13. She said she thought district officials should have encouraged more social distancing at the school bus garages.

Howell said her boyfriend, who she said delivers mail for the U.S.Postal Service, has also tested positive.

Deltoria Sharp, a bus monitor on Liberty Road for 16 years, said “this road to recovery is a very slow process.”

“My body was hit with a double whammy with COVID-19 and pneumonia. I will say the struggle is real,” said Sharp.

Noel Carpenter, whose 62-year-old mother, a bus monitor at Miles Point school bus garage, tested positive March 26, said two collateral cases had developed among their family members. Two aunts who didn’t work for the district also tested positive, Carpenter said.

Carpenter said her mother remained seriously ill in the hospital Thursday and she thinks the district could have been more forthcoming with notifications and precautions.

“This is killing me,” Carpenter said.

District spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall has said all employees at Miles Point were asked to quarantine on April 3. She has said it is not appropriate to do a press release or notification every time someone with a connection to the district is diagnosed with COVID-19 if there is no increased risk.

Stephen Peacock, a bus driver assigned to Lexington’s Liberty Road garage, said he didn’t think Fayette district officials had initially been truthful about the number of positive cases.

Peacock has started a Facebook group in support of Fayette school transportation employees. Several people in the group have posted that either they or their co-workers tested positive for coronavirus and were in various stages of treatment or recovery.

“I created the Facebook page for my transportation family,” Peacock said, “to ... give them a place we could laugh, cry, hurt and heal together like a family does.”

This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 3:06 PM.